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Opinion: Editorials

Editorial: Snapshots from the nation's press

Posted:
02/26/2017 11:40:40 PM MST

Henry Paulson, left, treasury secretary under George W. Bush, is one of a number of prominent conservative former government officials to endorse a carbon tax to combat climate change. (Evan Vucci / AP)

Conservatives and carbon

After decades of overwhelming scientific evidence showing that man-made emissions are endangering the planet's future, there should be no climate change deniers left.

If only that were true. Congressional Republicans refuse to take powerful steps to embrace renewable energy. Like the Trump administration, they seem poised to roll back environmental rules, including the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, without also establishing a workable mechanism to reduce carbon emissions. With the clock ticking on climate change problems, this would be highly irresponsible.

That is why we are pleased the Climate Leadership Council — a conservative panel including former Secretaries of State George Schultz and James Baker and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — is challenging skeptics in their party with a market-based approach. While their plan to tax carbon emissions has flaws, as does any carbon reduction system, we think it boldly speaks truth to power and could bring moderate Republicans to the table.

Market-based green-energy plans work, and lawmakers need only look to Texas, a fossil fuel intensive state, for evidence. Under former Gov. Rick Perry's renewable energy policies, Texas attracted billions of dollars in clean energy investments and created jobs that pay salaries that can support a family.

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Texas leads the nation in wind power and capacity; if it were a country, it would rank about sixth worldwide as a wind energy producer. Each time a wind turbine spins, Texas avoids putting tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The explosion of wind power has the state on a pace to exceed the carbon reduction targets in the Clean Power Plan. The reason? The state set aggressive targets for renewable energy use, and the market exceeded them.

Nonetheless, slowing climate change won't be without pain, regardless of the approach. The Climate Leadership Council's proposal would enact a rising carbon tax on emitters starting at $40 a ton. That could result in about 36 cents more on a gallon of gasoline and a 5 to 10 percent increase in retail electricity rates. To make the tax more politically acceptable, consumers would get a portion of the tax revenue back in the form of a dividend; businesses would get relief from much of the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory authority, including the Clean Power Plan.

The voices of Baker, Paulson, Schultz and other conservatives are especially important now. The world can't mitigate the most destructive consequences of climate pollution unless clean technology remains on this nation's agenda as a signal to other major carbon emitters of what is at stake.

—Dallas Morning News

An un-American plan

The Trump administration's new directive targeting undocumented immigrants by broadening who is considered a "criminal alien" is horrendously extreme, incredibly impractical and patently un-American. And as expensive as the overly aggressive policy will be, it will cost the nation far more than money from its treasury.

Once again President Trump has acted, hell-bent on keeping his campaign promises, at the expense of all this nation stands for. The administration insists that the policy targets only the dangerous criminals. But it's clear that it has practically any undocumented immigrant in its sights.

There is no nuance: The policy makes no distinction between the woman driving to her job without a license and the man convicted of armed robbery. What is the point of separating that woman from her children?

They will be denied due process: Undocumented immigrants won't have to be convicted of a crime to be a deportation priority. Just being accused will be enough. As we said before, un-American.

The cost is astronomical: The 10,000 ICE officers the administration pledges to hire will cost $4 billion a year — to say nothing of the cost of the detention centers that the private prison industry is licking its chops over. Trump hasn't said where that money is coming from.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story